A therapist's take on life, the world, you and me.

A breakup. A three year old. A phone.

Is it reasonable for a Father to ask his 3 year old son to call him every day?

Due to his Father having an affair that he wishes to explore and pursue, we’re separated.

The Father says that he misses his son and then asks that his son call him every day. I feel like I’ve made the point to the Father repeatedly and he either can’t hear or understand.

If you miss your son, then you need to call your son. He needs to have you call him so that he knows that you miss him. He will associate the action of you calling him with you missing and caring about him.

I get a lot of excuses for why he can’t call but my all time favorite is, “There is a time difference.” Amazing he can figure out the time difference between the West Coast and Asia to talk to his Mistress. But between the West Coast and the 50th State, just can’t do it. In every instance of my son asking to talk to his Dad, which has been all of once, I have called.

What’s your best advice here? Do I dig my heels in? Do I just make the call? Or do I wait for my son to ask to call his Dad? How do you communicate with a person like this?

And here’s my answer:

To submit a question to Ask The People’s Therapist, please email it as text or a video to: wmeyerhofer@aquietroom.com

If I answer your question on the site, you’ll win a free session of psychotherapy with The People’s Therapist!

Related

2 Responses

having been in a similar situation, my ex cheated, I have three children, we divorced, I tried my hardest to keep my ex husband as involved in my childrens lives as possible. We had a joint custody arrangement and even had a visitation schedule set up for times for him to have the kids that was supposed to happen on a regular/weekly basis. However, because he was and still is irresponsible and more interested in playing the role of the single bachelor more often then not plans that he made with the kids were cancelled and the kids were set up for disappointment and heartache. My kids are older now, and they know who their dad is, how he is, and what he is. They all do have a relationship with their dad however they also know which parent did the bulk of the raising of them. The thing I have a problem with as far as your advice to this woman of the three year old is that this little boy is going to be disappointed over and over by his dad if the little boy and the mom are the ones making the arrangments and the phone calls. It takes the responsibility, the ownership and the role of the father away from the dad and place all of that on the mom. And the little boy will blame the mom for every time those plans are broken, every time he is disappointed by the dad…like me the mom will be able to handle it, I’m sure, but the dad will get away scott free with being a childish immature man who never is forced to grow up. Making him be the one responsible to make those evening calls at least puts the ball in his court as far as having a relationship with his son. That is what I finally had to do with my kids dad. If he wanted a relationship with them, he had to work for it. No longer did I set everything up, drive them everywhere, make the plans etc etc. he was the parent…he needed to do some parenting! that’s my two cents!

I see your point – and yeah, it might make sense to try to “force” Dad to make the calls..but in this case, it doesn’t look like he’s going to come through no matter what. She’ll probably end up making the calls for him because he’s just not going to. I trust the child to figure out on his own what’s going on. Kids are savvy – they can see the truth of the situation.

It’s time for your appointment

Will Meyerhofer, JD LCSW-R is a psychotherapist in private practice in TriBeCa, in New York City.
You can visit his private practice website at: www.aquietroom.com.
Will holds degrees from Harvard, NYU School of Law and The Hunter College School of Social Work, and used to be an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell before things changed...
Now, in addition to his work as a psychotherapy, he writes books and blog entries and a column for AboveTheLaw.com.